the market of art dealers and galleries | Italy

1.1 Definition and scope of study

The art market refers to the production and trade of works of art and antiques. The art dealers and galleries market focuses on art dealers, who account for 58% of global art sales in 2019, and thus excludes auctions (42% of global sales).

According to Wondeur AI's classification, art production is divided between star artists (1% of the world's artists), renowned artists (1%), established artists (14%), and emerging and underrepresented artists (84%).

The art market can also be segmented by category of work (sculpture, painting, etc.), by period (contemporary, modern, etc.), and by price range. 

Globally, the value of the art market came to a growth halt in 2020, its value dropped from $64 billion in 2019 to $50 billion in 2020, this is mainly due to the impact of the pandemic. The change in value depended on the decrease in sales volumes, which reached 31 million transactions in 2020 compared to 40 million in 2019. 

However, thanks to the new technologies that have been developed, a general recovery of the market can be expected. 

In Italy, the art market has always been a strong point of the economy. Even here, however, the market has been challenged by the recent pandemic. The Italian response has been to invest in digital solutions that allow for stable growth even during such an uncertain period. 

Even art galleries are reviewing their strategies and focusing on a more digital approach. An example of digital strategy is the collaboration between several galleries (including some of the most influential ones in Milan) with the online platform Artsy in order to create communities and promote some emerging artists to them. The project was called Milan Gallery Community and has been quite successful. 

Another strategy used is the active use of social media to promote both works of art and exhibitions. 

The latest recent trend is that of NTFs (non-fungible tokens), which are files associated with proof of ownership and authenticity that exist on the blockchain in order to encode the provenance, transfer conditions and uniqueness of certain artworks.